The Committee for Justice, the Sinai Foundation for Human Rights, and RFK Human Rights have submitted a communication to the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC) on behalf of a 16-year-old Egyptian child (identity withheld) who was unlawfully detained, forcibly disappeared, and tortured by Egyptian authorities. The child’s detention and torture are a flagrant violation of children’s rights under international law and part of a broader pattern of state weaponization of anti-terrorism laws to stifle civic space.
In September 2024, the child was arrested by plain-clothes Egyptian National Security Agency (NSA) officers. The NSA officers provided no justification upon arrest and immediately put him into their vehicle and took him to an undisclosed location. During his detention, Egyptian State Security officers stripped him, beat him, and tortured him in various ways, including subjecting him to electric shocks and binding him during unsupervised interrogation. In addition, his family was not permitted to visit him.
The child was not presented before a court until January 2025 first, where he was accused, without evidence, of joining and financing a terrorist organization, as well as taking photos and videos of a military building. After this appearance, his family attempted to visit him but were denied access by authorities. After being transferred to the Supreme State Security Prosecution (SSSP) in Cairo, he was tortured again and forced to make incriminating statements under duress. Eyewitnesses say that the child was in a weak and vulnerable condition, with his face covered in rashes and unable to raise his head. After his time at the SSSP, the child was returned to a local police station, where he was placed in solitary confinement for a week before being moved into a cell with adult detainees. His family was still not permitted to visit him.
In the communication submitted to the ACERWC we assert that the child’s treatment by Egyptian authorities amounts to violations of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, and particularly to the rights to protection of privacy; to education; to health; to protection against child abuse and torture; the administration of juvenile justice; and to parental care and protection.
This case is emblematic of the Egyptian regime’s desire to have absolute control over the public sphere, at the expense of all citizens, including children. This trend contrasts sharply with Egypt’s increasing prominence on the international stage, exemplified by its recent election to the United Nations Human Rights Council. This increasing prominence must not be used to whitewash Egypt’s long history of human rights violations.
The Committee for Justice, the Sinai Foundation and RFK Human Rights call on the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child to hold Egypt accountable and to affirm the rights of Egyptian children to be free from torture and arbitrary detention.